A PIEBALD TRIBE: THE MOTU-MOTU PEOPLE OF HOOD’S BAY, AND A TYPICAL KALO HOUSE.
The piebald people are one of the mysteries of New Guinea, and their origin is unexplained. The spear in the warrior’s hand is made of hard redwood, sharpened, and has no metal. The house is built on an open wooden framework, and the flooring of the dwelling-room begins at the bottom of the closed-in gable. On this inflammable floor, within the thatch of flag-grass, they actually have a fire on a mud hearth. The slanting pole is a ladder for the inhabitants. In some cases they have little ladders for the dogs.
Another Port Moresby character was Weaver, the greengrocer; he has a history, but no man knows it, and it is popularly reported that he has a family in Australia. He has been in New Guinea for some years, and lives quite alone in an isolated district where he built a house and took up some land. He stands 6 feet 2 inches, and is a curious eccentric fellow whom nobody understands. He does not care for visitors, and has even been known to threaten distinguished personages with his gun when they dared to knock at his door! Twice a week Weaver brings in his vegetables, packed on two ponies, and sells them to Europeans at Port Moresby. It is said that he is accumulating money. He is perfectly independent, and quite a character; utterly illiterate, he has the dogged opinions which usually accompany lack of education. He believes in himself, has no one to help him in his work, and tells you quite frankly that he thinks he could run New Guinea better than any one. On all subjects under the sun the opinion of Weaver is absolutely right and that of the world absolutely wrong.
As the days dragged on Harry and I thought we would vary the monotony of our life, and obtain a change of diet, by taking a small excursion down to Hula, the great fishing-place. By the courtesy of a trader, who was going down in a whaleboat, we obtained a passage. A voyage of a few hours took us down, and we found the village fairly large, built like Hanuabada, only most of the houses stood in the water on piles. The shore is thickly fringed with cocoanut plantations. The people, who belong to the Motuan tribe, as those of Hanuabada do, live by supplying the inland natives with fish. They go down to the fishing-ground, about two miles from shore, in small dug-out canoes, and this industry affords a very delightful touch of colour to the scenery of this part of the Papuan coast. The fishing is done at night, and just as the sun sinks the canoes come up past Hula in great crowds. In each boat are four or five fishermen, who pole up the shallows and paddle when they come to deeper water. As the darkness deepens the flotilla suddenly bursts into flame, for their method of attracting gare-fish, which is their chief quarry, is by burning huge flares of dried palm leaves. Each of these flares is made up of a considerable bundle of leaves, and the men brandish them about in their hands. The light lasts for a considerable time. The effect of these many fires, reflected in long tracks on the water, is extremely picturesque. The fishing lasts all night, and at dawn the fleet returns with its catch.
The work is not unattended with danger, for sometimes the gare-fish, which are armed with a sharp sword-like projection of bone from the front part of the head, will, as they leap in blind terror of the light, strike the fishermen and kill them. The natives set up a stick in the water where any one has been killed by gare-fish.
Another interesting feature of Hula was the presence there of a piebald people. For the most part their bodies were brown, but they were marked with pinkish patches unevenly distributed. It is not improbable that this marking might be due to a disease, contracted from a too constant fish diet, but if it were a disease I could not discover that it gave any discomfort. Against this theory must be set this fact, that I observed one man in whom the light markings predominated. In fact, he was quite fresh-coloured, like a European, and had light hair. These piebald people were not a class apart from the rest of the Hula villagers, but shared their life in every respect.
The piles on which the Hula houses are built look quite insufficient to support the superstructure. The pitch of the gables is not always uniform in the same house, and in these cases the ridge-pole is not horizontal.
Before we came to Hula, however, we had paid a visit to Kappa-Kappa, one of the very few localities in New Guinea that show any immediate result of missionary effort and of a direct attempt to introduce the methods of civilisation. There resides the agent of the London Missionary Society, Dr. Laws, who has been perhaps longer in British New Guinea than any other white man, for his stay now extends over thirty years. The missionary has a fine house standing on a slight elevation and commanding a magnificent view to the north and south. A remarkably fine road leads up to Dr. Laws’ residence, and 300 yards away is the Christian village, built in detached houses along the rise and forming a regular street. We were very much amused to notice that the houses were all numbered, and that many of them had Scotch names inscribed on a little piece of wood fastened over the door.
There were about sixty houses in all, and a really fine church and school. This last we visited and heard the children sing. They gave not at all a bad performance for coast natives, to whose discordant tones I have already alluded, and if my good friends, the mountain people, with their beautiful voices and their fine idea of music, had had the same training, the effect would have been little short of charming. We saw the place at a slight disadvantage, for the drought had greatly withered the vegetation, and Dr. Laws’ fine orange trees were all dead. The natives, I was glad to see, wore their ordinary dress, and no ridiculous attempt had been made to thrust them into European clothes. Dr. Laws did everything in his power to render our visit pleasant, and to him and his wife we are indebted for much kind hospitality. There is much that is enviable in his pleasant dwelling-place, and he seems to be on excellent terms with the natives. As I have elsewhere had occasion to remark, it is doubtful whether this generation of Papuans is capable of much spiritual enlightenment at the missionary’s hands, but the seeds of industrial progress at any rate are being sown, and the order and apparent prosperity of Kappa-Kappa say much for the work of the pioneer. There is no Paradise, however, without its serpent, and the scourge of Kappa-Kappa is the black snake, which attacks the natives.
The poison is most virulent, and Dr. Laws told me that if he could see the sufferer immediately he could save him, but if only a few minutes elapse before help is available death must inevitably ensue within an hour. This snake also kills the missionary’s horses, which it invariably bites on the instep. He keeps the horses for his little trap, in which, at the close of our visit, he drove us down to the coast, a distance of about four miles.
Besides the things I have mentioned, we found little else to interest us in Hula, and after a short stay we set off to walk round Hood’s Bay to Kalo, the next village of any importance, situated a little way from the coast. On the way we passed the little village of Babacca, the headquarters of a copra trader called Joher.